Student orchestra with iPhones for instruments

Smartphone now so powerful it can replace parts of the real world

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As if the iPhone wasn't already enough of an attention hog, a US college has equipped a group of students with the Apple device and told them to go make sweet music on it.

The University of Michigan students are using the iPhone to perform a live concert featuring their own compositions. Each handset has a strap for attaching it to a player's wrist and a speaker so the audience can hear the result.

Just blow it

Every phone has been programmed to resemble a different instrument, with the microphone serving as a mouthpiece for blowing into and the motion sensor allowing software to produce a variety of responses and sounds.

According to course leader Georg Essl, the idea behind using the iPhone was to see what could be done with the now-ubiquitous smartphone.

Piano tuner

Buried deep in the BBC story, however, is one of the more unusual iPhone-related nuggets we've yet seen.

Apparently, the piano tuner for the prestigious BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra uses an iPhone app as a routine part of his work tuning Steinway pianos. Like we said, ubiquitous.